Topics Philosophy

Question What sort of logical arguments might be used to support metaphysical naturalism? Is it simply an assumption based on the lack of evidence for the supernatural? Also, do the majority of philosophers today advocate this view? Thanks for your answers.

Accepted:
August 11, 2009

Comments

There's no settled usage for the term "naturalism" in philosophy. But I guess that most of those who think of themselves as naturalists would say that we should recognize the sciences as the best way of finding out about the world and "refuse to recognize the authority of the philosopher who claims to know the truth from intuition, from insight into a world of ideas or into the nature of reason or the principles of being, or from whatever super-empirical source. There is no separate entrance to truth for philosophers."*

On this view, philosophy's questions may be more sweeping than those of the special sciences or concern the relationships between different special sciences (and perhaps other forms of enquiry), but the methods of good philosophy are continuous with those of science.

Now, that's still not very specific, but you can already see that naturalism understood this way involves something a lot more than just unfriendliness towards the supernatural. You could cheerfully endorse the claim that the world isn't populated with gods or demons, sprites or angels, without being a philosophical naturalist. You could (like many philosophers through history) still think that there are distinctively philosophical questions that have to be answered by distinctive philosophical, non-scientific, methods, without also thinking that the world is full of spooks and spirits.

In sum, merely rejecting the supernatural (because of lack of any evidence for it) wouldn't be reason enough to endorse metaphysical naturalism. So what reason is there to buy naturalism?

Good question! But a consistent naturalist will, of course, want to say that there's no quick answer: a defence of naturalism will have to depend on a careful evaluation of the results of the naturalist approach in action (just as with other theories, by their fruits ye shall know them). And she'll then point to the impressive body of e.g. contemporary philosophy of mind and language done in a naturalist spirit. Of course critics will then pounce on problems for the naturalist, as they see them. And the debates will continue ...

*I've lifted the words quoted above, somewhat out of context, from the great philosopher Hans Reichenbach.

Question What sort of logical arguments might be used to support metaphysical naturalism? Is it simply an assumption based on the lack of evidence for the supernatural? Also, do the majority of philosophers today advocate this view? Thanks for your answers. Accepted:August 11, 2009

Question What sort of logical arguments might be used to support metaphysical naturalism? Is it simply an assumption based on the lack of evidence for the supernatural? Also, do the majority of philosophers today advocate this view? Thanks for your answers.

Accepted:
August 11, 2009